François Caradec |
Introducing The Fenouillard Family |
On the 28th of March, 1936, at 10:20 p.m., a recuperating Jean Cocteau
left
Paris to embark on his own journey Around the World
in 80 Days, dogging,
he confessed, less the footsteps of Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg
than those of
Christophe’s Monsieur Fenouillard.
It makes perfect sense that this born academician had from an early age
been intrigued by Monsieur Fenouillard’s way of thinking. He no
doubt
realized that Fenouillard himself had recreated the voyage of Phileas
Fogg
according to a prescription dear to Christophe—old
wine in new bottles—
and so thought he had no need to start from scratch.
But Monsieur Fenouillard’s world tour was not the first journey
undertaken
by this likeable purveyor of cotton bonnets. Previously, in February
1889, an illustrated serial entitled “A Country Outing” had
appeared in the
Journal de la Jeunesse, published by Hachette. There we find its hero,
Agénor Cornouillet, a Parisian jeweler and owner of a green alpaca
umbrella, busy deciding whether or not to spend his Sunday at Versailles
or
Saint-Cloud in the company of his dear wife and two daughters, Artémise
and Cunégonde. Just as Christophe’s other Parisian hero,
the learned
Cosinus, will later fail to get beyond the gates of Paris, so Monsieur
Cornouillet likewise remains stuck inside the capital.
In August 1889, Monsieur Cornouillet reappeared under the guise of
Monsieur Fenouillard in the Petit Français illustré, whose
publisher,
Armand Colin, had begged Christophe to supply him with “anything”
relating to the Universal Exhibition. But at the conclusion of this “journey”
(Fenouillard having by this time become a Parisian businessman
retired to Saint-Rémy-sur-Deule [Somme Supérieure], which
is to say
Lille), young readers clamored for a sequel. And they were not disappointed:
Christophe published “La Famille Fenouillard” in the Petit
Français
illustré—in a manner recalling both the legendary images
d’Epinal and
anticipating modern comic strips—from August 31, 1889, to June 24,
1893.
A total of 53 episodes spread over five years! But that was so typical
of
Christophe: both brilliant and lazy, he correctly surmised that no child
who
read the beginnings of Cosinus or Camember in this anti-clerical, anti-
German weekly would be around for the conclusion of their adventures six
years later…
—
FRANÇOIS CARADEC is one of the leading lights of the Oulipo writing
group.
His landmark rehabilitation of Christophe was first published in 1956,
with a
preface by Raymond Queneau, and was reprinted, greatly expanded and lavishly
illustrated, by Pierre Horay in 1981. Caradec’s other works include
the definitive
study of Raymond Roussel, and books on Alphonse Allais, Lautréamont
and the
infamous farter “le petomane” (with Jean Nohain).
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Christophe - The Fenouillard Family at the 1889 Exhibition
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